My first [relatively successful] Angband char

[Knight]

Okay, so please let me know if I shouldn't be posting this here, or if I'm spamming up the forums. I'm a new user here and a relatively new player of Angband (I'm mostly an Adom guy, but I haven't beaten either game :P) Coming into Angband, it's a lot easier than Adom, but I've killed quite a few chars already, so I think that all may not be as it seems. Once I had another promising char but then I dived a few levels too deep and got -600 health from a single poison breath...

... which leads me to my point in creating a new thread here. I'm doing pretty good with my current level 27 human warrior, but I'm worried I'll dive too fast and miss something obvious, so I've come to the professionals for help. The following is a dump of my current char (and somebody please let me know if this isn't the right place to post it):


Name Beleith Self RB CB EB Best
Sex Male Age 18 STR: 13 +0 +5 +2 18/20
Race Human Height 68 INT: 11 +0 -2 +3 12
Class Warrior Weight 157 WIS: 10 +0 -2 +0 8
Title Myrmidon Social Liked DEX: 16 +0 +2 +5 18/50
HP 357/357 Maximize Y CON: 18/43 +0 +2 +2 18/83
SP 0/0 CHR: 9 +0 -1 +3 11

Level 27 Armor [54,+40] Saving Throw 46%
Cur Exp 29718 Fight (+6,+6) Stealth Good
Max Exp 29718 Melee (+13,+14) Fighting Heroic
Adv Exp 35000 Shoot (+6,+0) Shooting Heroic
MaxDepth 1200' (L24) Blows 3.6/turn Disarming 53%
Game Turns 578388 Shots 1/turn Magic Device 37
Standard Turns 64750 Infra 0 ft Perception 1 in 13
Resting Turns 5693 Speed 3 Searching 39%
Gold 19505 Burden 170.0 lbs

You are one of several children of a Serf. You are a well liked
child. You have dark brown eyes, straight blond hair, and an average
complexion.


rAcid:........+.... rConf:.............
rElec:........+.... Sound:.............
rFire:........+.... Shard:.............
rCold:........+.... Nexus:.............
rPois:............. Nethr:.............
rFear:+............ Chaos:.............
rLite:+.........+.. Disen:.............
rDark:............. S.Dig:.............
rBlnd:............. Feath:...........+.

Light:+.........+.. Aggrv:.............
Regen:............. Stea.:...........+.
ESP:............. Sear.:....+........
Invis:+............ Infra:.............
FrAct:+.........+.. Tunn.:.............
HLife:............. Speed:+..........+.
ImpHP:..+.......... Blows:+............
ImpSP:............. Shots:.............
Fear:............. Might:.............


[Character Equipment]

a) The Short Sword 'Sting' (1d6) (+7,+8) (+2)
Found lying on the floor at 1100 feet (level 22).

+2 strength, dexterity, constitution, speed, attack speed.
Slays animals, evil creatures, undead, orcs.
Provides resistance to fear, light.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Prevents paralysis. Grants the ability to see invisible things.

Combat info:
3.6 blows/round.
With an additional 1 strength and 0 dex you would get 4.0 blows
With an additional 0 strength and 2 dex you would get 4.0 blows
Average damage/round: 79 vs. animals, 79 vs. evil creatures, 92.5
vs. undead, 92.5 vs. orcs, and 65.8 vs. others.

Radius 1 light.
b) a Light Crossbow (x3) (+0,+0)
Dropped by a Gnome mage at 1100 feet (level 22).



c) a Ring of Open Wounds
Found lying on the floor at 1150 feet (level 23).

Impairs hitpoint recovery.

d) a Ring of Protection [+14]
Bought from a store.



e) an Amulet of Searching (+5)
Found lying on the floor at 1000 feet (level 20).

+25% to searching.

f) The Phial of Galadriel
Dropped by Mughash the Kobold Lord at 550 feet (level 11).

Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

When activated, it lights up the surrounding area, hurting
light-sensitive creatures.
Takes 14 to 26 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 91.2%

Radius 3 light.
g) Bar Chain Mail (-2) [45,+1]
Bought from a store.



h) a Cloak [1,-1]
Bought from a store.



i) a Wicker Shield of Resistance [2,+10]
Bought from a store.

Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

j) a Metal Cap of Beauty [3,+4] (+3)
Dropped by Nár, the Dwarf at 950 feet (level 19).

+3 charisma.
Sustains charisma.

k) The Set of Leather Gloves 'Cammithrim' (+4,+4) [1,+9]
Found lying on the floor at 1000 feet (level 20).

Provides resistance to light.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Sustains constitution.
Prevents paralysis.

When aimed, it fires a magic missile with damage 3d4.
Takes 2 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 90.4%

Radius 1 light.
l) The Pair of Leather Boots of Wormtongue (-1,-1) [2,+0] (+3)
Found lying on the floor at 600 feet (level 12).

+3 intelligence, dexterity, stealth, speed.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Feather Falling.

When activated, it teleports you randomly up to 10 squares away.
Takes 26 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 90.4%



[Character Quiver]

n) 17 Bolts of Slay Dragon (1d5) (+3,+3)
Dropped by a Cave orc at 1100 feet (level 22).

Slays dragons.

Combat info:
Hits targets up to 120 feet away.
Average damage/round: 36.3 vs. dragons, and 18.1 vs. others.
25% chance of breaking upon contact.


----

And finally, I also have short sword 'Dagmor' (and an inventory full of relatively useless items, most notably a staff of identify [5 charges] and 20 critical healing potions):

s) The Short Sword 'Dagmor' (1d7) (+13,+11) (+2)
Dropped by Ibun, Son of Mîm at 1200 feet (level 24).

+2 attack speed.
Slays animals.
Branded with venom.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Slows your metabolism. Speeds regeneration.

Combat info:
3.1 blows/round.
With an additional 2 strength and 0 dex you would get 3.3 blows
With an additional 0 strength and 2 dex you would get 3.3 blows
Average damage/round: 79.2 vs. animals, 92.5 vs. creatures not
resistant to poison, and 65.9 vs. others.
----

Which I'm thinking about selling. I'm not sure, but I think Sting is better. The farthest I've dived is to level 27 (1200') and I just want to slow down and make sure I don't kill off this guy like I did my last couple dozen. :P

So, do you professionals have any advice for me?

[Angelus]

The biggest thing with diving is simply paying attention to what's around you-and being able to escape at a moment's notice. In other words, make sure you always have at least a staff of teleportation on you, and preferably some scrolls of teleport level/deep descent. Switching levels is the only certain escape, so having it handy is helpful.

Learn to run whenever your health gets below about 30-40%, sometimes higher when you're fighting a monster with a powerful breath attack.

Sometime between 30-40, poison resistance becomes fairly crucial, you have to play *really* carefully to do without it. Note: I don't remember the last time I let poison resistance keep me from diving. But I also know every single monster that can breath poison for significant damage, and am quite good at running away...

The two rings you're wearing: rings of open wounds are in general not terribly useful. They slow down hitpoint recovery, which means more turns on levels at lower health->not beneficial.
The ring of protection seems more useful than it actually is. AC is useful, but much less useful than damage.
Basically, rings of damage are where it's at for warriors. They can massively increase your ability to kill things.
Also, it's usually relatively easy to find a ring of poison resistance early on, which makes going through the dungeon much safer. So be on the look out.
Also, any rings which increases stats, especially CON and STR, are extremely helpful, especially in the early game.

Other than that, pretty much just be careful, and get lots of loot.

[Knight]

Okay, so I ended up selling Dagmor so I could purchase a potion of constitution, which brought my health up to 399.

I figured Ring of Open Wounds might be more useful in a melee, where I could use the healing activation. If I'm regenerating at a meaningful rate it's usually because I'm not in a fight, in which case the RoW wouldn't be a problem. Right? Or is my reasoning totally off? :P I'll replace it if/when I find a ring of pois. resist though.

Yeah, I recently acquired two staves of teleportation, those will be handy. Oh, and just killed Bolg, son of Azog. Tough nut to crack and he didn't drop anything good. Brodda came up behind me at the same time but he was a pushover.

Thanks for the tips!

[Derakon]

I've never personally used Open Wounds. Practically anything would be better, I suspect; the activation is a distraction. Outside of a fight, resting longer means more monsters spawn, meaning that future fights will be harder; in a fight, you'll want more healing than the activation can provide. Potions of Cure Critical Wounds are preferable here since a flat 60HP heal is much better than 10+5d8.

[debo]

FYI, I don't know if you're wearing that Cap of Charisma because it has the best AC you've found so far, or if you're wearing it b/c of the Charisma bonus.

If it's the latter, you should probably know (if you don't already) that CHA doesn't do much outside of getting you better deals in the stores in town. (As far as I know -- I'm still a newb.)

What's up with that (1, -1) cloak?

Recent personal experience -- in the dlvl 30s, the very first monster I met who could hit with Nexus scrambled me so that my int (3) was swapped with my str (18/130). I quit that character (my first angband character ever! ) Not saying you need Nexus resist, but if you have the slightest inkling that something might hit you with Nexus, RUN!

You can definitely find a better shooter.

Your damage-per-round also seems fairly limited, as others have said, +STR potions and +damage rings will go a long way for helping that. Switching to a lighter weapon at that point might pump your DPR significantly.

Great resistances so far!

FYI -- take everything I just said with a grain of salt, I'm still a huge newb

[Jazerus]

FYI, I don't know if you're wearing that Cap of Charisma because it has the best AC you've found so far, or if you're wearing it b/c of the Charisma bonus.

If it's the latter, you should probably know (if you don't already) that CHA doesn't do much outside of getting you better deals in the stores in town. (As far as I know -- I'm still a newb.)

What's up with that (1, -1) cloak?

Recent personal experience -- in the dlvl 30s, the very first monster I met who could hit with Nexus scrambled me so that my int (3) was swapped with my str (18/130). I quit that character (my first angband character ever! ) Not saying you need Nexus resist, but if you have the slightest inkling that something might hit you with Nexus, RUN!

You can definitely find a better shooter.

Your damage-per-round also seems fairly limited, as others have said, +STR potions and +damage rings will go a long way for helping that. Switching to a lighter weapon at that point might pump your DPR significantly.

Great resistances so far!

FYI -- take everything I just said with a grain of salt, I'm still a huge newb

Most of your points are entirely valid. I would add that nexus is not usually a serious threat at the point where you're unlikely to have nexus resistance. Some out of depth nexus hounds could pose a problem, but other than those I think the worst you'll probably encounter is a nexus Q; they just teleport you. The stat-switching effect is actually pretty rare.

[Knight]

About the RoW, I'll dump it for a ring of STR or CON when I find one. It seems to be pretty bad after all.

About the cap; because of the AC. I know what charisma does. I'm not expecting the monsters to come up and give me a big hug because I'm so cute. :P

I've had really bad luck with cloaks so far... I missed the ID, I thought it was better. Or might have gotten hit with acid when I wasn't looking.

Yeah, I need definitely need a better launcher... I had a longbow of extra shots (5, 6) but then I dropped it, and I haven't found anything good for bows since...

Yeah, my strength took a lot of hits when I was ID'ing potions. I'm just gonna go with ?ID's from now on and look for some +STR now that I'm deeper than 1250'.

[Storm-Sky]

Cool feature here on ook is the ability to submite your character on the ladder, all you have to do at the character screen is type F for file, it dumps your character info into the lib/user folder, then go to the angband ladder and where it says submit your dump, type your character name then upload your character dump from the lib/user folder in your angband directory, then click submit button, and it uploads your character. The cool thing is you can update your character as you progress and basically create your own ladder for yourself here on ook.